Farrell, Margaret (2023) Causal selection in context: specificity, interdependence, and genetic causation. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Causal selection is the decision one makes when giving a causal explanation to emphasize some causes of a phenomenon as relevant for explanation while backgrounding the rest. Contemporary philosophers agree that causal selection in scientific causal explanation must have something to do with the interests of scientists, though they disagree over whether or how this makes causal selection capricious. They study successful or well-regarded scientific explanations for commonalities that might underlie scientific causal selection decisions. Some accounts hold that once scientists’ pragmatic explanatory aims are fixed, causal selection can follow without further influence of idiosyncratic interests. In this paper, I argue that explanatory aims and selected causal properties or selected causes are interdependent. Further, I argue that this interdependence imposes a limitation on the usual philosophical strategies for understanding scientific causal selection.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Farrell, Margaret margaret.farrell@uci.edu 0000-0003-1281-889X
Keywords:	Causal selection, genetics, causal explanation, gene centrism
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology/Genetics General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	Margaret Farrell
Date Deposited:	16 Oct 2025 11:09
Last Modified:	16 Oct 2025 11:09
Item ID:	26935
Subjects:	Specific Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology/Genetics General Issues > Explanation
Date:	12 June 2023
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26935

Available Versions of this Item

• Causal selection in context: explaining gene centrism. (deposited 16 Aug 2023 14:07)
  • Causal selection in context: explaining gene centrism. (deposited 29 Oct 2024 12:59)
    • Causal selection in context: specificity, interdependence, and genetic causation. (deposited 16 Oct 2025 11:09) [Currently Displayed]

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